How worthy is your sacrifice

Dear friends in Christ. Praise be to God for another opportunity to share some thoughts with you.

At Easter time we as children of the Living God are being reminded of God’s sacrifice for us. Our God gave the very best sacrifice He could. He gave His perfect, guiltless Son, in exchange for the sins of a world who hates him. Complete forgiveness of sins, total cleansing of our hearts and healing of whatever is broken in our lives. We gained all of that because of one perfect sacrifice.

Today I would like to talk about our sacrifices to God. In the Old Testament, when the children of God lived under the Law, forgiveness was asked for by sacrificing an offer to God. The sacrifice had to be the best of whatever they had. If it was food such as fruit or maybe a lamb, it had to be the best of their fruit or their best, strongest and most flawless lamb. Nothing less than the best was good enough for God. In Malachi 1:6-14 we read how God is infuriated with Israel for bringing Him sacrifices that were “defiled”. He talks about blind and crippled animals, or stolen animals that were placed before Him as offerings, and God was so repulsed by it that He wished the temple doors would be shut so that those sacrifices could not be offered and He tells Israel, in no uncertain terms that He will NOT accept sacrifices as such and that those who bring such offerings before Him will be cursed.

Praise the Lord that we live a different life than the people in the Old Testament. After God gave Jesus as sacrifice for our sins, we have been forgiven and cleansed and God forever sees us through the blood of His Son, the most pure and by far most perfect sacrifice that could ever be given. Therefore we live according to the freedom of the New Testament; Jesus gave us the right to live in the full Righteousness of God because of what He did on the cross. We therefore never need to offer a lamb or any other sacrifice as a way to “buy” our forgiveness. The price has been paid in full! Praise God.

But even though we no longer need to sacrifice burnt offerings, there are still certain things that God wants us to sacrifice to Him- not in order for us to obtain forgiveness but rather because once we decide to give our lives to God, those things should become a natural part of our new lives and what we want to give to God because it pleases Him. Here I am talking about things such as giving God our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving daily, helping our fellow man, loving our neighbours and obeying our Spiritual leaders ( Heb 13:15-17.) Also giving our tithes, respecting our elders, teaching our children about God, spreading the Gospel- the list goes on and on. In fact, everything that we do in our lives as Christians should be a pleasing sacrifice to God.

So my question today is, how pleasing are our sacrifices to God? How acceptable are the things we offer to Him? If we praise God on a Sunday morning in church but we do it with a heavy heart, is that not the same as giving a less than perfect lamb as an offering? Or if we teach our children about The Lord, but when we need to set an example to them by helping the beggar in the park and we do so with a heavy heart or we choose to ignore him completely, is that a perfect and acceptable sacrifice to The Lord? What about our tithes? Do you give it with utmost joy in your heart? Or do you give it while thinking about how your monthly budget will now not balance? Or do you not give it at all?

Dear friends, we are all guilty of giving God sacrifices that are less than perfect. Maybe during this Easter Season we should take some time to remind ourselves of how perfect God’s sacrifice for our sins was when Jesus had to hang on that cross and then compare our own daily sacrifices to God. If you sent your perfect son to die for the salvation of the people of the world, would you be happy to accept the kind of sacrifices that we offer to God daily?

Dear God, I thank You for Your perfect sacrifice for our sins. Thank You Lord Jesus for dying so that I can live in perfect forgiveness. Please help me to offer sacrifices to You that are acceptable and pleasing in Your eyes and forgive me for so often failing to offer You the best that I have to give. Lord, You are everything and You are all to me. Amen.

Expect the unexpected and be fearless in Christ.

Elizma Byleveldt